HR Trends of 2017

A quarter of 2017 is almost over 3 months into 2017, more data and statistics have been gathered, which allows for more analysis to be made. In this article, I will be sharing my version of the 5 HR trends of 2017.

1) Invest in Employee Experience

By investing in employee experience, it allows you to communicate well with your employees and be aware of how they feel about your company. This new HR trend can be seen as more companies are starting to invest in employee experience. Companies even develop strategies which will help them to create an excellent employee experience. Some factors of employee experience include the physical work environment, technologies that help promote productivity, etc.

The Future Workplace and Beyond.com’s study entitled “The Active Job Seeker Dilemma” found that 83% of HR leaders said “employee experience” is either important or very important to their organization’s success, and they are investing more in training (56%), improving their work spaces (51%), and giving more rewards (47%). Companies are also driven to focus on creating a compelling employee experience as the war for talent heats up.

By investing in employee experience, it is also considered as continuously evolving and improving your company’s HR capabilities. You should also make deliberate attempts to create a holistic view of wellness for your employees, such as financial wellness to health and well-being. An excellent employee experience allows you to promote your employer brand, attracting new talents, and retaining top talents.

2) Creative workspaces

A new HR trend is to come up with creative workspaces for your employees by having a workspace that is defined as unique to your company, which will also promote the culture of the company.

There are basically two different general workspaces now. Firstly, it’s the typical individual table for each employee. Secondly, it is the co-working space idea. However, these two workspaces are on the extreme ends of the beam. One is too suffocating to be facing a wall when working and another might result in no privacy at all. So how can your company accommodate to both needs in the workspace? It all depends on your employees. Communicate with your employees and find out what they prefer; that is the best way to start.

Research from Steelcase conducted with a global sample of 12,480 employees across 17 countries documents that workers who have control over where and how they work and are free to choose a workspace to fit their task at hand—either focused work or collaborative work—are 88% more engaged at work.

The workspace is not just a place for employees to work. It is important for the HR to promote the company’s culture and engage employees at the same time. Give your employees the choice to choose their working location in line with their individual preferences and personal needs. There is no one size fits all solution, so it is up to you as to how you can come up with the best solution for current needs and the available space.

3) Focus on Candidates

Another HR trend for 2017 will be a new focus for the HR department – a focus on candidates. Performance management is a common practice for most companies where employees get feedback from employers. Now, we are starting to see more candidates requesting feedback from employers as well. This is of utmost importance for companies as well as it will affect their employer’s branding and candidate experience.

Employees and candidates can now rate a company’s culture and management on platforms such as Glassdoor. These thoughts shared by people who were communicating with the company before will have a very strong impact on the general public. This is why big companies are translating their relentless focus on customers to their employees and candidates.

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4) A Blended Workforce

A blended workforce basically means that the workforce does not only consist of full-time employees. The workforce will include consultants, contractors, freelancers, part-time employees, and other contingent workers, also known as Gig Economy Workers.

A study by Fieldglass revealed that, in 2015, the average company’s workforce consisted of 54% traditional, full-time employees, 20% contingent workers (freelancers, interns, and contractors), and 26% that existed in a grey area somewhere between the two (including remote and part-time workers). The researchers predicted that by 2017, the share of “non-traditional” workers would grow to 25% contingent, 34% grey area, and 41% traditional workers.

A blended workforce is very common these days, but the new HR trend is that the composition of non-full timers will increase over time. More and more companies are starting to accommodate contingent workers. You should start to focus on building a blended workforce and address issues such as onboarding and training for the contingent workers.

5) Team vs. Individual

Many companies often emphasize the importance of teamwork, but they end up rewarding a particular person. Employees are starting to work more closely together, from individuals to teams to networks of teams. This is when the focus should be on team development and not just individual development.

HR departments have traditionally focused on individuals during recruitment, training, and assessing their performance. However, a new HR trend shows more companies practicing the importance of team spirit. Great teams will deliver exceptional results with the combined team intelligence and team effort. Companies, such as Cisco, have noted that great accomplishments are achieved through teams, not just through individuals working alone. Therefore, there is no reason to focus exclusively on an employee.

Every individual employee’s experience is going to be different unless you focus on the team dynamics of the company. Look at the networks of teams and how to improve the way teams are working together. Try to have more group activities and collaboration within the company that promotes communication. Working in a team is not only more fun for the employees, but it will also benefit your company when new and interesting ideas come up. Most importantly, there will be a higher productivity and efficiency when working with a team.